INC NEWS - Bonfield lays out reorganization (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Bonfield lays out reorganization
By Ray Gronberg, Herald-Sun, 21 Nov 2008

City Manager Tom Bonfield has announced a reorganization of his government's upper ranks that will require the hiring of a third deputy manager, a shuffling of assignments and big changes in Durham's transportation office. 

The move is will cluster the city's key operations under one deputy, support operations like human resources under another, and the departments that work on community-development issues under a third. 

Bonfield's Thursday announcement came three months and nine days after he took office, and has been in the works for several weeks. The changes will start on Jan. 1. The manager briefed City Council members on the plan beforehand. 

The move came because work at City Hall hadn't "been really structured in a way that promotes departments that have common responsibilities in the big picture working together," Bonfield said. 

The new organization chart confirmed something Bonfield hinted in October, namely that he'll establish a new department to oversee the Durham Area Transit Authority. 

The department and its as-yet unnamed director also will take on parking services and the small unit that regulates taxicabs, he said. 

Supervising DATA and the taxis are jobs that until now have belonged to the city transportation office, which in turn is part of the Public Works Department. 

Bonfield said DATA needs higher-level attention. 

"Issues with public transportation have been hampered because it's been buried several layers down in a very large department," he said. "We need to have folks that are recognizing that as their principal responsibility." 

The transportation office will retain its role in long-term infrastructure planning and development-permit reviews, Bonfield said. 

"It's possible" a future shuffle will move the transportation office from Public Works into the City/County Planning Department, he added. 

The decision to hire a third deputy manager -- and shuffle the deputies' oversight responsibilities -- was the other big change. 

Holdover deputy Ted Voorhees will work with what Bonfield said are the city's core services: the 911 center, Fleet Management, Parks, General Services, Public Works, water, Transit and Solid Waste. 

Police, Fire and Emergency Management will report directly to Bonfield, but they'll also be part of Voorhees' operations group and participate in meetings with the departments under its flag. 

The other holdover deputy, Wanda Page, will oversee support departments: Finance, Budget, Human Resources, Technology Solutions, Equal Opportunity/Equity Assurance and the Office of Strategic Initiatives. 

The yet-to-be-hired new deputy will watch over "community building": City/County Planning, City/County Inspections, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Community Development, Neighborhood Improvement Services and Human Relations. 

Bonfield said he wants deputies to focus on coordinating work that spans departments, on making sure departments hew to policy and on holding them accountable for results. 

Deputy managers will not, he said, act as de facto department directors. 

The directors must "assume more responsibility for departmental outcomes and for some duties that have migrated to the city manager's office over time," he said in a memo detailing the changes.